Weekend Adventurers

This last weekend started off with a trip to the Sea Center and Hatchery in Lake Jackson. It is owned by Texas Parks and Wildlife and because of Shane's close affiliation with TPWD, they were having a volunteer appreciation day and we were invited. We toured the hatchery facilities (amazing. They hatch literally millions of fish that look like little pieces of sand floating on the water.) and saw their outdoor lakes where they house the older fish before they ship them to the Gulf. Inside they have salt water aquariums and a touch tank full of fish, crabs, and sea anemones. This was a definite favorite of the day. When we finished at the Sea Center, in true Mize fashion, we decided to drive to the beach. (Keep in mind that we had nothing beachy with us. No suits, no flip-flops, no towels...)
We drove straight south and ended up in Surfside. It was a quaint, off-the-beaten-path kind of town that I am sure that we will be visiting again. The road that we were on dead-ended right into the public beach. We were toodling along and nearly missed the lady sitting in the booth charging $10 to get to the beach. Shane looked at her in disbelief, and then said, "All we wanted to do was just look at the beach and come back." She grouchily told him it didn't matter, he still had to have a permit. (I think that maybe she had heard that before.) I could see the wheels starting to turn. Shane said,"Fine. We'll just turn around right there." He pulled a little past her on the road, made a U-turn, went off the road and straight into the sand. We sank like a rock. I was spitting nails. Shane walked back to the lady in the booth. She looked at him and said with a smirk, "I told you not to go over there." Meanwhile, I was having to apologize to the kids for saying things that they get their birthdays taken away over. Thankfully, a man with a truck was driving by and Shane was able to ask him for a tow. He took one look at our car and started laughing. "A Jeep?!"(Jeep owners all across America are cringing right now.) Shane started laughing and told him that it was a "housewife Jeep." Whatever. He pulled us out and we were on our merry way. Moral of the story: Stay on the road or hard-packed sand!

We found a whole bunch of beach that was free as could be and had a blast!
This was as close as I could get to Gib. He was exploring and finding all kinds of things, including a crab.
Landry was having a blast and wasted no time getting soaked from head to toe. At one point, we had to nab her from the water as she was swimming for the open sea screaming, "Nemo!"
Once Hayden got over getting wet and sandy, he enjoyed himself.
Grace was having a blast herself! We will definitely be back!

On our way back to the car, Shane helped a couple of guys get their truck out of the sand. What goes around, comes around I guess. It felt good to be able to return the favor.

We finished off our day with our favorite restaurant in Galveston. If you're ever in town, Gino's Italian Restaurant and Flying Pizza. Most amazing food ever! It is a must-stop or a drive-way-out-of-our-way kind of place for us. It was a really fantastic day and a wonderful way to spend time in our new area.